City needs to stop ‘riding on the coattails’ of the county: Gillis

City/county Coun. Anne Marie Gillis is setting her sights on the city rejoining Ontario's largest municipal lobby group after a decades-long absence from its membership roster.

Gillis plans to bring forward a motion to the next city council meeting calling for the city to rejoin the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO).

Close to 450 Ontario municipalities belong to the Toronto-based organization that develops policies on municipal issues and advocates on behalf of its membership to senior government officials.

The County of Lambton – including Sarnia – belongs to both AMO and the national lobby group, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), but for Gillis, she said it's time for the city to stop “riding on the coattails” of the county.

“It just seems like we need to be part of this organization again, and certainly speaking to some of my counterparts on city council, they see the wisdom in belonging to those organizations, particularly with AMO,” Gillis said Friday.

Sarnia city council pulled the plug on its AMO membership in the 1990s in part due to city taxpayers already helping fund the county's membership, as well as discontent over the group's lack of advocacy on certain municipal issues.

“On a number of issues, I went to them – everything from the racetrack slots to OPP policing and court security costs – and they would never take a position based on the nature of their membership,” said Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley, who led the charge to end the city's membership.

He doesn't see the benefit of the city paying membership dues to an organization it already belongs to through the county.

City/county politicians can still attend all the AMO conferences and activities through the county's membership, he noted, adding city taxpayers pay more than 50 per cent of the county's levy.

He estimated the city has saved $200,000 in dues through ending its membership. He pegged the city's former membership costs to be between $10,000 and $15,000 annually.

“What is the value for us to spend that type of money?” he said. “I just don't see the value.”

But Gillis said fellow city politicians have remarked it’s challenging to represent the city's interests at AMO events without the municipality holding its own membership.

“It's difficult for us to represent the city when we're there on the county dime,” said Gillis, who is an Ontario director on the FCM board.

“For me, on FCM, I'm representing the county, but I'm also there for my city indirectly, so it's a convoluted way of doings things and so it would be much better if we were actually belonging to those organizations because they advocate on our behalf and we reap the benefits.”

She also pointed out the city needs to be fair in dealing with the other municipalities in the county that pay their own dues in addition to supporting the county's membership.

“I'd rather drop a sum buying a Hallmark card saying, 'I love them,' rather than spend more than $10 to $15,000 a year to have good feelings between them,” Bradley said. “We are paying for those county municipalities too through our contribution.”

The recently-formed Southwest Urban Mayors' Caucus was born out of a need to address urban issues, Bradley noted, adding AMO tends to focus on rural issues due to the composition of its membership.

“It's not like American Express,” Bradley added. “Membership doesn't have many privileges.”